On October 19, 1864, Confederate Lt. Gen. Jubal Early launched a surprise attack on Maj. Gen. Philip Sheridan's Union Army of the Shenandoah, and the Union soldiers were nearly routed.

However, Sheridan launched a counterattack and won the Battle of Cedar Creek.

Clearly, counterattacks can be effective.

Researchers at Cornell's Food and Brand Lab recently peered into more than 200 American kitchens to improve their counter intelligence. They learned that in homes with soda displayed on the countertops, the women of the house weighed on average 25 pounds more than those whose counters were soda-free.

And in homes where kitchen counters had a bowl of fruit sitting out, women weighed around 13 pounds less than neighbors who didn't dish up such tasty produce.

Call in the cavalry, and haul out the fruit! But not just any fruit.

Your choice — starchy or not — can do a lot to help control your weight. For instance, if you always have just bananas and avocados in that bowl, well, they're packed with nutrition but they're also high in calories (both), carbs (25 percent of bananas' calories come from starch), and unsaturated fat (85 percent of avocados' calories come from fat). You can easily overdo them.

But plums, peaches, citrus, melons and all berries have a high liquid content (fewer calories), less starch (fewer carbs), no fat and lots of brain-, heart- and sex-friendly phytonutrients.

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